I just purchased a PNY geForce 5200 Ultra to replace my geForce 2 MX. After unintaling the drivers and then reinstalling them from the console, Xwindows refuses to start. I get the NVidia spalsh screen and then nothing... I can ssh into the box and poke around and found nothing in the XFree86.0.log out of the ordinary everything seemed to load fine. I checked the CPU load and found it was running at 100% a ps -A showed
3374 ? 00:17:43 X
as the only noteworhty process that could be doing that.

Things still aren't working, the system still refuses to start X, basicly pegging the CPU at 100% and stopping (I've waited up to an hour to let it start) though I am getting some more useful error messages namely:
_____________________________________
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.o
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.4363
Module class: XFree86 Video Driver
_____________________________________
(The "compiled for 4.0.2", is that okay if I'm running 4.3? if not what do I need to do?)

The "compiled for 4.0.2" message is fine. The binary interface to X hasn't changed since then -- or at least, according to Andy Mecham (the guy from nVidia that pops up here right about every driver release, then disappears for a while) that's the case.

Those other warning lines are just modes that aren't getting validated. Shouldn't be any big deal there, either...

And whoops, I see that my original post was way off base. I should have said "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV" (instead of IgnoreEDIDs), but I see that you already have that option in there, too, and it isn't helping. The screen is going back to black after the nVidia splash, right?

*********Kernel*********
I have recompiled my kernel (yes, the newbie is advancing) to remove
agpgart and add support for the nvidia agp driver which supposedly runs
faster with the VIA chipset I have. (note: it didn't change the fps
(Frames Per Second) at all.)
I removed support for all other motherboard chipsets, even if it was
loaded as a module.
I made a few other tweaks also, (added NTFS read support, added DOS
support, and a few other things that I forget at the moment) even if not
related to game performance, just because I was there and I thought
would enhance my OS for one reason or another. I never compiled a kernel
before, it wasn't too hard, following the generic directions.
end of notes

I have exams tomorrow, so I need to get on that, I'll try recompiling the kernel again more carefully, since the nasty /dev/agrgart (I presume this is not supposed to happen if he kernel has been compiled w/o agpgart?) showed up again, and I ended up breaking some othere things...

If you have no agpgart support whatsoever, and are SURE that you'll never want it again, then you can delete the /dev/agpgart file after booting into that kernel. If, that is, it isn't gone already -- if you use devfs, then files in /dev show up and disappear as modules load and unload already. So if your distro uses devfs, then the only reason the /dev/agpgart file would be there is if you loaded the module (intentionally or not).

I've compiled 3 different kernels and not a one of them wokred (2.4.20, 2.4.21, 2.5.70) I disabled AGPGART cuz it don't like my chipset (VIA). So I play rtcw and et in Windows for now, till nvidia fixes, kernel fixes, or by a miracle I happen across a kernel configuration that works. Wheeeee!!